Diabetes is known to affect more than thirty million individuals worldwide at the present time, assuming the dimension of a major phenomenon from the public health standpoint: as an example, it is considered that diabetes affects between 2 and 5% of the population in the countries of Europe, and that approximately 3 to 4% of inhabitants in France suffer from non-insulin-dependent diabetes, which is by far the most frequent, and in particular between 5 and 10% of subjects from 60 to 70 years of age suffer from this disorder.
Furthermore, and for various reasons linked, in particular, to richness of the diet, obesity, smoking or decrease in physical activity, the number of diabetic patients appears to have doubled in France in around twenty years, essentially as a result of an increase in non-insulin-dependent diabetes.
This disorder is characterized by a defect of regulation of insulin secretion, associated or otherwise with an insulin resistance of the peripheral tissues. Impairment of the functioning of the pancreatic B cells which synthesize insulin occurs right from the initial phase of non-insulin-dependent diabetes. It manifests itself in a very marked decrease in insulin secretion in response to a glucose stimulation.
To treat this disorder, the specialists have consequently been led quite naturally to look for products capable of stimulating insulin secretion; among these, only sulfonamides (sulfonylureas) have evinced efficacy: they are consequently the only medicinal products of this type which are currently offered on the market.